Of all the 1960s big pop festivals in Croatia, the one in Split was always the least sophisticated - less pretentious than the stages in Opatija and Zagreb, it offered summer hits for coastal audiences who welcomed music flavoured with sea, sun, fishes, old stone houses, olive trees, etc - insert every cliché here). Not surprisingly, this festival have also outlived all of its older, venerable cousins because it unrepentantly celebrated mainstream, local dialect and homegrown artists.
However, back in the 1960s Split festival still had to follow official rules - the tentacles of politics somehow got entangled in every sphere of daily life, including entertainment and "guests" from other parts of the country were obligation forced upon the organisers. While having big variety of artists sounds attractive on paper, in reality this means inviting people who had 0 connections with the coastline, Split or this culture at all - where Elda Viler, Lado Leskovar, Radmila Karaklajić and Slavko Perović at least tried to embrace the idea, the notorious choice of Đorđe Marjanović now seems just a very bad decision - it might be one of the worst moment in festival's history.
On positive side, quite a few pop classics came from this particular year - Dubrovački Trubaduri sung "Dalmatinski Lero", Arsen Dedić, Vice Vukov and Ivica Šerfezi had huge hits, while wonderful Maruška Šinković had song tailored by Zdenko Runjić and Tomislav Zuppa (same duo that will later create "Kapetane moj"). Not included on LP were songs on two EP records also worth searching for.
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